An article, ‘When All Else Fails, Consider a Useless Job’, was published recently on CareerCast.com, claiming that the traditional travel agent is no longer necessary. American Society of Travel Agents’ (Asta) senior vp, Paul M. Ruden, has responded vigorously in a letter to the site.
“The inclusion of travel agents in your article about ‘useless jobs’, along with the likes of sign-spinners and clairvoyants, is as an insulting as it is inaccurate. Before slapping such a label on an entire industry, you might have considered doing basic research on it,” Paul says.
He goes on to explain that travel agents who have embraced new technologies have not only survived but thrived, as he outlines statistics in the industry including that “as of year-end 2012, there were about 8 000 US travel agency firms in business employing 105 000 people. In 143 million transactions, those agencies sold US$86 billion worth of air travel (64% of the market).”
He concludes, after criticising the author of the article for not doing any research on his claim, that “labelling these hard-working men and women as ‘useless’ does them and your readers a huge disservice”.
Read the full letter from Paul on www.asta.org as well as the original article (http://www.careercast.com/career-news/useless-jobs) and let us know your thoughts.
